October 8, 2015 - 14:24
I.
We had some terrific approaches to Du Bois's Souls as well as connections between Souls and Rankine and Tocqueville. I appreciated the creativity and artistry that Shirah and Sula brought as well as the passion and care that Farida and Han exhibited. All four experimental essays were successes as far as I am concerned -- and I look forward to seeing how they take shape in their next iterations.
We could have spent a little more time connecting Tocqueville in DuBois, I think. From my notes for that class, I would remind you of the following (with some more elaboration):
1. Du Bois's arts of freedom: He insists that freedom requires training, which comes out toward the end of "Spiritual Strivings." The idea here seems to be that the Freedman's Bureau could have prepared freed slaves for freedom by providing educational institutions, property and means of employment, and cultural institutions to support the development of African Americans beyond their limited, functional role prior to emanicipation. I should also note that Du Bois was a pioneering scholar of the reconstruction period -- the era after the Civil War when the U.S. attempted and then failed to help freed slaves. When reconstruction failed, Jim Crow emerged as a new means of control replacing slavery, as Michelle Alexander points out. But what about the institutions that Du Bois mentions? How do those build on what Tocqueville emphasized and how might they still provide hope?
2. This connects with the idea that the emancipation of slaves did not free them; the paradox of "freedmen" not being freed at all. This appears at the beinning of "Of the Dawn of Freedom" (p. 17). To connect this with the Socrates Cafe: freedom requires conditions of its realization; we can't have a free society that does not facilitate the desires of its members. Han pointed out just how necessary equality is to freedom. But then this raises a question: How can a society negotiate conflicting desires? Are certain desires simply unacceptable if we're committed to equality as a necessary precondition? What about, for instance, the desire for a single-family home or an SUV? We know that not everyone can have these things. Can and should society limit consumption of what are called "defensive" or "positional" goods, goods that depend upon superiority: higher clearances, gated communities, etc. How might this lead to different considerations of the institutions necessary to protect equality and promote freedom?
3. Du Bois also uses the language of "citizenship," writing that the Freedmen's Bureau might have created "a great school of citizenship" (p. 34) but failed to do so. Farida raised the question of whether or not one would want to be a citizen at all -- and how "hyphenated citizens" are second class citizens. How might Du Bois respond to this? Does he envision tiered citizenship or an overcoming of these obstacles to equality and freedom?
4. We didn't talk at all about Du Bois's discussion of "Negro criminality" (p. 130). Even in his time -- he published Souls in 1903 -- blacks had become associated with criminality. Keep this in mind when you read Alexander's discussion of how "felon is the new 'N word.'" How does this stigma play out for both criminals and non-criminals? How is it related to race? What are the collateral effects unrelated to race?
5. Shirah and Sula did wonderful work calling out attention to how Du Bois envisions the role of art in the struggle for freedom. Look again, for instance, at DuBois's description of the sorrow songs as the "articulate message of the slave to the world" (p. 182). I find it interesting that Alexander calls for "care, compassion, and concern" and invokes James Baldwin at the end of her book (p. 206; pp. 209 - 248). How might this connect with Tocqueville's emphasis on mores? How can we separate institutional arts of freedom from non-institutional? Are they of equal importance or not? Why?
II.
Looking ahead to The New Jim Crow, I'd encourage you to consider the questions above as well as some more focused questions on Alexander's arguments:
1. How does incarceration function as new version of what DuBois described?
2. In what ways do the broader social and political trends detailed by Alexander (including but not limited to prisons themselves) limit the arts of freedom?
3. What kind of policies does Alexander suggest as a response to mass incarceration? How might ordinary people (citizens and non-citizens) be involved?
III.
Our experimental essayists for Monday, October 19 are Tong, Rhett, Sylvia, & Julia. I look forward to hearing what you make of Alexander!